Bury Me Standing, I've Been On My Knees My Whole Life

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STOP.

Is That The Time?

Jesus! It feels like an eternity since I last posted. I'm getting a bit fed up of writing these entries like periodic postcards to the outside world, but until I get mind, soul and body in order, it'll have to do. The truth is that I've been a little too tired to think about anything other than the most rudimentary blog input. Alas, I'm off until Tuesday and I'm taking myself away for most of that time. Where? Ha! I'm not telling, someone might find me. Work has been the biggest fucker. Two of our number were made redundant and we've moved to another office. The days go by quicker but the work is a few degrees more intense. Having to account for 90% of your working day was the first big shock. I shit ye not, every single thing we do in a day has to be logged and timed. For some jobs it's not a problem, but when you do half a dozen different things, it's a fucking nightmare. I spend about an hour of my day just filling the bastard fucking spreadsheet in, complete with the case numbers of everything that's crossed my desk. I keep looking for the column in the spreadsheet that says "Time spent filling in this useless piece of shit because some over-paid retard at the top of the company gets a fucking hard-on from reading statistics".

Bah! It doesn't help when one of the folk to survive the cull is contributing to the deterioration of my mental hygiene. We all know the concept of the 'man-child'. This is the 'woman-child'. I haven't had to deal with her much before, but she's starting to drive me to distraction. Job-wise, she does one thing. All day. She has done for the past four or five years. This wasn't a problem when we had high volumes of work and everyone was assigned a duty. Now we all need to be able to do each others jobs and while this is no problem for most sentient beings, fat arse has done nothing but wheedle and whine like an irritating five year old. Fuck! If I hear her simpering on about how she misses our much loathed old boss, or how she's fed up of getting emails from the team leader updating us on our new roles, or how she doesn't like the new office, I'll end up snapping and cramming one of her filthy cheese spread white bread sandwiches down her craw with a rolled up Land Certificate!! At the very least I might ask her to experiment with eating with her fucking mouth closed. All I hope is that management and HR realise they got it wrong when they decided to jettison the smartest cookie in the pack and keep this stammering, simple minded fucktard. There, all gone. A little weight off my chest.................. Feels better already. So, that's the state of play in my world. Borderline psychosis, fatigue, anger management issues etc............... What about the rest of you? Has the very notion of going to work made you physically ill in recent weeks? Are you having a wonderful time in a land of milk and honey where nobody cares when you come and go and free gym membership and prostitutes? Are you constantly justifying yourself to an off-hand, shit thick time server who looks at you like you've just vomitted on their lap? Do you get to watch YouTube and I-Player on your company's internet connection and spend your days emailing clips of swearing hamsters and old Rainbow episiodes to workmates? Are you a smug comfort-zoner or are you a down-trodden prole? Answers on the back of the usual beermat. Behold! U2 Are Shit! as are Coldplay, Metallica

Albino Burns Victim

The Easter egg lies to one side, ignored. The last stubborn gesture of a doomed man. Under his tenure, the department was cut off, not just by time and space, but by a belligerent autonomy that that led to it's current isolation. Nothing worked, least of all us. This was where you ended up if you annoyed someone or fucked something up. This was the Dead Letter Office. We hadn't received Easter eggs from the company for a few years. No big deal, just a box of cheap chocolate, but it told you everything you needed to know. We were the Damned United. The wee man though, he won't be suckered with this tawdry gift. The gaudy carboard box sits on his desk and gathers dust. A bit like he did, truth be told...... He's letting us all know what he thinks of the company who gave him the boot, as he winds down his last few days before finding himself a job more suitable to his talents. Like a shelf stacker. Or a toilet attendant. Who'd have thought he was once one of Sir Fred's little devil spawn? I tell you this though, I envy him. Next month he'll be at home watching Jeremy Kyle, Bargain Hunt and Fuck Truck Vol IIV while I grind through spreadsheets and write letters to the sort of wankers who remortgage seven times a year. What's fair about that? Brough Park, Newcastle Easter Monday is usually a hellish drag of a day. It's like a 2nd Sunday, except without the speedway. That's why this year I accepted the offer of Ashfield aquaintance Paulco and took a berth on the Glasgow supporters bus down to the north east of England to watch the Tigers take on Newcastle Diamonds. Glad I did. The journey down went by in a flash, as did the return, due mainly to good company and constant banter. Brough Park, being a night track based at a greyhound stadium, is a very different prospect to Ashfield. On the up-side there's no dust and the floodlighting provides a great atmosphere. The hospitality and facilities are also top notch and on the night we visited, they had sorted the track to provide maximum entertainment. The rubbish elements included limited viewing (only the home straight, about thirty feet from the track), and the sense that photography is a bit of a no-no (I could be wrong on that though) Anyway, a great night out and better than spending the day sleeping and watching fucking Bond flims and religious epics.

The Dark Hearted Soul Of the Average Office Drone

Our line manager got made redundant. We celebrated. It was wrong on too many levels to count, but somehow none of us could help it. Like spiteful school children, we quietly sneered, jeered and mocked amongst each other. I am not proud. That said, I won't miss his foul breath, arrogant offhand manner, contradictory bullshit and creepy wee shell-games. So, first day of summer or what? Today had that 'feel', that scent that says summer is just around the corner, with it's mandatory six days of nice weather and endless days of humid, damp misery. I feel better already! Unlike my old Grandpa. He's 94 you know!! He's also in hospital with a sore foot. They want to get antibiotics into him via a drip, then see how he does. Mum mentioned something about MRSA, which obviously raised an eyebrow on my part. If 'Iron Baws' Jimmy Morrison can contract that sort of thing, then nobody is safe.............. Tonight's visit was fairly entertaining though, just as long as you kept him off his usual conversational trajectory. He does a fairly good Private Fraser impersonation, and it's a constant battle to keep him from getting too bloody morose. Gentle mockery and a hearty dismissal of his ruminations seems to get the best out in him, as he realises you aren't going to wear an hour of his "The world is about to end!" chuntering. We also got his story about how the humble tomato saved him from the draft during the war. He grew them you see, and the government regarded them as an important part of the British diet. So important that the Jimster spent '39 to '45 fighting the jolly hun by providing ripe, juicy toms to the populace. I did point out that had he been conscripted and survived the war, it would have constituted a different reality and different circumstances. It was possible that neither myself or my brother would have been born and we wouldn't be having this particular conversation. My brothers girlfriend asked if Jimmy would still be in hospital with a sore foot on this alternate timeline. I concluded that yes, he would still be in hospital with a sore foot, but nobody would be there to visit him.................... New York Dolls - Trash Beautiful archive footage.............

We All Need Somebody To Come Home To

I cannot lie, things haven't been good for the old iLL Man. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have no real money worries (yet), winter's nearly over and I'm currently itching to get started on some gardening projects with Clairwil and the rest of the Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening crew, but there's something pulling me down.............

I'm of the belief that it's my job which, to quote a wise man, 'pays my way, but corrodes my soul'. Each morning I wake up with tiny, sharpened claws of dread digging into my gut, and each night I come home and watch the clock, willing time to stop. Weekends become symbolic of my desire to simply get the fuck out of my life and do something a little less boring instead.

To that end, I have decided that I shall travel to Ayr at the end of the month for an open day at what used to be a Butlins holiday camp. It's now a 'Haven Holiday Park', whatever that is. Apparently the job entails taking photos of stuff and then loading them up to be printed out. I think. All very vague. They're probably looking for a toilet cleaner or something, but I'd still take it in a flash. Anything to be away from that air conditioned hell-hole on North Street.

Funny I should mention Butlins, because it looks like the traditional British intern......er, I mean holiday camp is due for a revival. As the 'credit card crunchie' turns into a full on recession, people no longer seem willing to spend money on foreign holidays. Or something. Look, Ruth Maddox said it, so it must be true!! The thinking is that people will still go abroad, but the likes of Pontins, Butlins and Haven will be there to provide cheap local breaks for those who find that even an all inclusive on the Costa Del Sol is just a bit too much. It's just that these places have to up their game a bit to keep people who are used to endless sunshine, cheap booz and transvestite caberet acts coming back. The mind boggles, it truly does..............

Maybe they'll have Redcoat jobs for Lucy Pinder and Tommy Sheridan......

In other news, it seems Chris Martin, of tedious pomp rock bores Coldplay has been banned from the studio by none other than the God-like Brian Eno. Apparently it's to allow the rest of the band to work up unlistenable cack without the singer chipping in every five minutes. How I hope they extend the ban indefinitely. The album will still be shite, a turd polishing exercise if ever there was one, but at least nobody would have to listen to the smug, self satisfied little cum stain's pissy little voice. Knowing Eno, Martin's contribution will be limited to him farting down the phone line and having it looped at different speeds over each track. Hell, even I'd buy that!

One final request. Can someone ask Barack Obama to stop copping for stuff? It's not terribly becoming of a world premier to state that he 'screwed up'. How does he think Bush lasted eight years? Admit fuck all. It might seem cute and refreshing at first, but believe me, people will start to agree with him after a while and then he's shafted.

Frankly, Mr Shankly

Posting in the wee hours. Wouldn't have it any other way........... As a child, I always responded well to late nights with the 'grown up's', listening to odd and apocryphal tales about strange family members. Time moves differently for a nine year old than it does for an adult, and eleven pm always seems like the dead of night. These days, an early night is half twelve, so such formative experiences have obviously served their purpose for this trainee hedonist. Of course, it's all Vic 20's, ZX 81's and Acorn Electron's these days.................The art of being bored senseless by ageing relatives seems to be all but gone............... I awoke this morning to find Police tape everywhere. It covered most of the back court, as well as the street in front of my flat. Even getting down towards Maryhill road was a chore, having to be directed by various officers of the law until I was clear of the area of forensic interest. Seemingly a man in his early forties had keeled over right outside my bedroom wall on Friday night. No suspicious circumstances it would seem, just common-or-garden natural mortal termination, the likes of which happens a thousand times a day. It's just that this guy did it 'alfresco', rather than lie rotting in his flat for six months, until the neighbours started to object to the smell. Since I'm of the belief that one of the finest things a human being can do is to die and make one's neighbours retch from the stench of one's putrifying corpse, I can't help feeling that this chap may have missed his chance. Still, he got the full 'men in white suits with camera's' treatment, so it wasn't all bad............... Talking of glib attitudes towards death............. Latest score from the Gaza Strip. Game off due to corpse strewn, blood soaked, crater riddled pitch. Match re-scheduled for sometime in the distant future, when the price of human life is regarded highly enough to print receipts. Then there's work. The human pustule I work under seems to go from strength to strength. As the department dwindles and the heart of the place dies in front of us, the little pissant charged with the daily running of our part of the office seems to become more and more virulent. A major lesson to us all in the dangers of allowing unctious, egregious, time serving little turds to hold control over anything or anyone. He reminds me of Major Major from Catch 22, but without the positive personality traits. We're talking about someone who tells you to bring any work problems to him, and then treats you like a mental retard when you do. His basic personality defect is that he breathes. I'm of the belief that he can't help it, that he's a seriously tedious, small minded, passive aggressive little arsehole who has no business being in charge of anything more important than the stationery order. My escape is almost complete. I shall not be denied. Ok, nothing more to see........... Go on, bugger off! ;)

Some Observations On Futility And Impotence

Saw someone having some sort of breakdown in Iceland (the supermarket chain, not the country) the other day. Not sure if she was a junkie or an alkie, but she had packed about half a dozen pizzas into her basket and seemed to be manically hunting through the freezer units. I had noticed she didn't look to be in the rudest health, but I figured she was ok. Apparently not..........I was at the checkout when two staff members suddenly looked a bit panicked and raced off in her direction. I get the feeling she had collapsed in one of the isles. Poor sod, it's no way to fucking live.............

Met a stray dog tonight. No collar, just a wee brown dug, sniffing about and picking up scents. May it find a fair few open rubbish bags tonight. You really do want to stop and call these mutts over, clap them, talk to them, give them a scratch behind the ear. Problem is, they're probably full of fleas and other nasty shit. feeling sorry for these guys is one thing, doing something about it is quite another.

Another seminar at work. This time it was broken up into groups, each one informing you of the benefits of working for Company X. Of the five sections, three did their job with minimum fuss, one condescended badly by using a football pitch and 'cut out' football jerseys to illustrate the difference between the benefits available from the new company as opposed to the old one. They even handed out a 'programme' and 'match ticket' for the 'Benefits Trophy'. Oh dear!

The worst was the head of HR who committed the ultimate sin and decided that we, his audience should do the talking. Sadly, he got about five minutes out of my particular group before deciding he'd had enough and went out for a fag. I hadn't the heart to inform the poor fucker that I couldn't care less about the merger, that I really had no thoughts in my head beyond what I was having for tea tonight and in all honesty, I'd rather have heard more from the guy outlining the pension scheme. Sweet Lord!

On the up side, it was a damn sight better than fighting sleep while some director prattles on for an hour and a half about company structure..............



Too Drunk To Fuck by the Dead Kennedys

Automatic Evil

To me, the sign of a civilised workplace is the provision of a kettle, milk, sugar, coffee and teabags. In a day and age when the morning and afternoon break, certainly in office culture, is routinely ignored, going to make a cuppa is as close as you get to punctuating a long and tedious day.

Alas, this is no longer the case where I work. The kettle, teabags and coffee have been confiscated and a hulking great big machine has been installed. Yes, one of those rotten shit heaps that dispenses watery tea, retch inducing hot chocolate and a dozen varieties of coffee, all of which taste roughly the same and all of which scour the lining from yr stomach. The only thing remotely drinkable was the chicken soup, which they proceeded to remove and replace with 'hot water'. Aye! Great fucking idea! It's my belief that the people who run the company probably think we all got down on our knees and prayed to the machine like it was a God when it was fitted.

"Oh great mechanical dispenser of rancid hot beverages, hear our prayers and piss out gallon after gallon of toxic smelling effluent for us, so that we may spend a little less time in the kitchen making tea and coffee, and a little more time fucking about on the internet while the boss isn't looking."

Buncha useless bangers!

"Oh!, but it's still free!" they'll exclaim. I should ruddy hope so! Can you imagine if they actually tried to charge you for the pleasure of feeling slightly ill after half a cup of what they amusingly refer to as 'Choco-milk'? If theres chocolate or milk in it, I sure as hell didn't taste it...........

In the next six months this machine will:

1)Make someone violently ill with one of it's brews

2)Malfunction catastrophically

3) Gather dust in the corner of the kitchen like an unwanted wedding gift.

I'm bringing in a thermos until they see sense and bring back the fucking kettle.

Picking At The Edges Until They Fray A Bit

Due to being unable to blog with much frequency, I've been reduced to doing a sort of round-up of stuff that's taken my interest. Very dull and a bit 'rote', but until I get my arse in gear, it's all you'll get.

First up, I found this awe-inspiring message board. Let loose on the object of your loathing in the workplace and have readers rate your rage. Please visit the rest of the site too. My favourite was the chap whose wife "looks like Lorraine Kelly, but ten years younger"

Beautiful!

Next up Kelvin McKenzie. Ok, who's first to kick the fat faced cunt in the arse? I must say, rising to the bait is never a good idea, as the outraged complaints to the BBC illustrate. People were falling over themselves to call him a nasty racist so & so without realising that the words dribbling from pudgy lips are the utterings of a total simpleton, and the alleged racism was probably the least risible thing to emanate from him (I found him quite amusing in a 'panto villain' kind of way). Kelvin, poor soul that he is, still thinks the streets of London are lined with gold and that on every corner there lurk a dozen wide-boys and spivs, just waiting to turn a buck and rocket the economy into the stratosphere.

Mr McKenzie reckons we 'sweaty socks' just aren't 'entrepreneurial enough'. If you say so Kelvin. I wouldn't know of course, having spent the past thirty years suckling on the teat of the state and piggy-backing off hard working 'Del Boys' and used car salesmen in the south of England with my miserable tax paying existence. Oh yes..........

In his mind it's still 1987, and maybe it always will be.

Finally, a requiem for Berti. Whatever you say about Berti Vogts, he did one thing that neither of his successors would have had the stomach to do had they become national coach after Craig Browns departure. He put youth first, he gave young, talented Scots footballers a chance in the national side and encouraged the development of youth already underway at club level. Unfortunately, he got enough wrong to justify his eventual sacking (too many friendlies, not a great tactician, especially with relatively limited talent, maybe a wee language barrier, especially with the more bullish elements of the Scottish sporting press corps and wee fuds like Barry Ferguson).

According to this wonderful piece of populist revisionism, Berti left the national side (and by implication the game itself) at it's lowest ebb. Scottish footballs lowest ebb was actually prior to the entry of herr Vogts, not after it. I mean, the fact that Scotland almost made it to the 2004 Euro Championships under Vogts, only bowing out in a play off against the Dutch (another example of received history for another day) has nothing to do with anything, and you'd be a liar and an SFA lackey if you were to suggest otherwise.

Alas, it was beyond Vogts to build on this, but what he bequeathed to Walter Smith was the basis of the team that seems to be firing on all cylinders (touch wood) at this moment in time. What Alex Mcleish inherited from Smith when he smelled the prospect of a return to Rangers was phase two of the rebuild. If this is a work in progress, then I have no worries for the future.

Phase three begins after the next Euro championships, regardless of whether Scotland qualify or not.............

Ok. Zep time. This is for Flying Rodent




Ok, so the sound is horrible and the audience look Keith Moon's got to them with the elephant tranks, but it does rock like nobodies business.

My Boss Is A Ninja

He is!! I swear! I never see him come into the office and never see him leave it. When he is in the office, I need eyes on the back of my head to detect his movements. If I find him clinging to the underside of my desk on Monday morning, I won't be the least bit surprised. His other trick is to wait until you've left your desk before he passes on instructions to you. On returning, a small yellow post-it with a semi-legible spidery scrawl on it is found on your desk stating your new mission in the exciting world of Title Deeds.

He reminds me a bit of Major Major from Catch 22. Does anyone else work with a similarly strange team leader/cog in the wheel type? I'd say every office has to have at least two or three of them.

On another subject, did anyone see 'You Can't Fire Me I'm Famous' the other night? Maybe it's because I've moved into the new place and I have no PC to otherwise distract me, but I've begun to watch a bit more television. I hope it isn't catching..............

I'm sure you all know the format of Piers 'Cunt' Morgans new vehicle. He basically sits and interviews celebs of varying talent and interest, all of whom have been dumped on their arses by the fickle nature of fate and fame. Quite why they believe they need to resorted to being interviewed by the worlds least sincere man is beyond me, though I imagine it could merely be an attempt to justify themselves or remind us again exactly why they no longer get the oxygen of publicity they so obviously crave and don't deserve. You doubt me? Consider names like Jade Goody, Naomi Campbell, Abi Titmuss, Richard Bacon..........

It all sounds like perfect car crash telly. There are a couple of problems though. Watching all of the above is likely to produce the square root of fuck all as far as sympathy goes in any reasonably sentient human being. What if the interviewee seems to be genuine and likable? Like Donny Osmond. Self deprecating to a fault, honest and, as a performing monkey since the age of about three, someone who has a genuine claim to have ridden the tip of the showbiz wave, as well as having been wiped out more times than he cares to remember. He didn't see 'penny one' of the fortune his family amassed and found that when he tried to grow out of his 'Osmonds' persona, nobody would listen to him. Cos he was Donny Fuckin' Osmond. Anyway, he plugged away, it came good again and he's made his fortune on Broadway. Good stuff.

Wheres Piers in all this? Or 'Pearce' as Donny kept calling him. 'Pearce' was busy nudging and guiding him along, often barely asking the question before Osmond came leaping in with a date or a time in which the incident happened, and so the anecdotes flooded out. Then it happened. Morgan had found something juicy. Something about a childhood letter Osmond had written whilst on tour in Sweden. Homesick and wanting to be back in Utah playing with his friends like a normal seven year old, he committed his his frustration to paper, only for his father to find it and tear a strip off him. This sparks off a genuinely uncomfortable piece of TV, in which 'Morgan The Merciless' ignores Osmonds plea to let it lie and continues to prod what still seems to be a bit of an open wound. Repeatedly. Until he cries. Tasteful? Only just. I saw no malice in Morgans eyes, but nor did I see much mercy.

Whilst Osmond never truly hit rock bottom, his story is full of humiliation and pathos. Being a Mormon helps. When you can't even go on a 24 hr tea & coffee bender, it's that little bit easier to focus on getting things back on track. No booze/coke/crack/smack/elephant tranquilisers etc to deflect you from returning to the top.

Just a horrifically unhip reputation that denied him any work (so much so that a pre-loony Michael Jackson urged him to change his name) and the bitterness that will eternally accompany anyone who spent their entire childhood performing for the financial pleasure of others, only to find that their dues were in someone elses bank account.
Anyway, I'm glad he's doing musicals. His singing brings me out in a rash............



This ones for Clairwil...............

'Roadshow'

When I were a lad, a 'Roadshow' was a live broadcast on Radio 1, usually from some scrutty seaside town in the pissing rain, hosted by the likes of Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw, featuring top tunes from the Hit Parade and Dave Lee Travis scaring children with his facial hair. Or something. To top it all off, you'd have an array of the days biggest pop stars (and Pete Burns) lip synching along to their latest hits. Peerlessly naff, and as popular as a public hanging. The product of a more innocent age.

Now it would seem that the term 'Roadshow' has been appropriated for altogether darker purposes. Basically a 'Roadshow' in business terms is a couple of middle management types with a big screen, a laptop, a microphone and a Powerpoint Presentation, trying gamely to generate some excitement amongst their employees about the company's new 'three year plan' and their projected profits. The half hearted gags, the the half arsed 'Pre-Roadshow' music, the utterly meaningless glossy pamphlets, the hour of my life I'd have sooner spent drilling holes in my head.................

Anyway, some suggestions for improving the 'Roadshow' product;

Dry ice.

Strippers (male & female if you want)

Free bar

Babyshambles live performance

I think it's a winner.

That wasn't the best of it. Apparently the company have a commitment to the environment. I was instructed to go to and from the venue for the 'Roadshow' via a specially chartered bus, even though said venue is actually only five minutes walk from my office. I was quite happy to oblige as it meant I returned to the office a good half hour later than I would have if I'd just walked.

Nice to see my Carbon Footprint is as big as ever

Look Into My Eyes

............No, better not come to think of it. Anyway, it's my new invention (Patent Pending.......) Ideal for those hideous conferences and 'roadshows' one is periodically asked to attend by the arseholes in charge of the company one works for.

Hello! It has come to my notice that there is a Paddington Bear movie in the pipeline. Hurrah! On the downside, it turns out it's live action. How the flying fuck will that work? A man in a bear suit? Tame bear cub on a leash? (No you twat! They'll use CGI!)

C'mon, it's either the Ivor Wood style 'stop motion' or nothing at all. Sacreligious cunts! Adding insult to injury, they've got everyones favourite Kodiak Peruvian eating Marmite sandwiches in a new advert. What the fuck is that about? Can I please have the waste of sperm and eggs that came up with that wheeze delivered to my door at some point this weekend so I can hoof him/her in the arse with my steel toe-capped winkle pickers. Paddington Fucking Bear does not eat vegetable extract butties! The bear I grew up with has impeccable tastes and eats marmalade sarnies and I'm sure would rather starve than sponsor what has to be the the most repulsive foodstuff in existance. You're fooling nobody you cunts! Fuck off and take your grot with you. You never know, it might come in handy if someone runs out of Polyfilla.

I hear the human mind is a wondrous thing, though I'm given to wonder otherwise at times. Apparently a good old fashioned smack upside the head is all you need to become something of a polyglot. It happened to Matej Kus, a Czech speedway rider. I was at the match and was witness to his accident. He lost control on the first bend and the guy behind him had no time to take avoiding action, so ended up running over the top of him. the resultant concussion saw Matej out for a fair while, and when he came round it was discovered that he was speaking perfect Queens English, as opposed to the few broken phrases he had demonstrated to the Berwick Bandits team manager beforehand. Now, one could argue that whatever English he had learned was locked away in his subconscious and the concussion 'un-locked it', allowing him to communicate in a language hitherto completely alien to him.

Failing that, he has pretty good English and he's decided not to let on for whatever reason, only to forget his deception when he came round from his knock. I think I'll be credulous in this one, if only because it's such a strange and wonderful story. Apparently he's forgotten his new language already and now needs an interpreter to communicate once more.

It seems the condition is known as 'Xenoglossy' and is extraordinarily rare. I'll let you make your own mind up.

The funniest thing is that my blog publishing page seems to be in German now. Needless to say, I'm a bit worried..........

A Head Full Of Rocks And A Belly Full Of Booze

I have been ordered to the doctors. Apparently my feet are so bad that my mother thinks I'm about to die or something. Ok, slight exaggeration, but yes, my feet are in a bad way and quite frankly, I need some kind of aversion therapy to stop me grinding my itching soles against whatever right angled surface comes to hand. I'm just waiting for a few blisters to heal before I start applying the Daktarin...............

Sorry if that's more than you needed to know.....

What is it with bosses? Why do they seem determined to ensure that their underlings have absolutely no respect for them? Maybe stomping across the room to chastise someone for absently playing patience on their pc at 4.55pm while they write out some addresses on envelopes has something to do with it. Little men being pressured by their superiors and taking it out randomly on their own minions.............It seems to be the way of things. The Big Man, who sits opposite me has a bit of cardboard with the Dept leaders name on it and an arrow next to it. Every time said boss leaves the room to go to the toilet/kitchen/out the office, he pulls this sign out and points it in the general direction of departure, like a slightly overweight and very ugly, ginger cheerleader. We all rejoice, as for a few sacred minutes we are no longer being watched...............

Should I ever attain such a position of power, my hope is that a silent assasin assails me in the night and painlessly lobotomises me or something. Team Leader = Everyone hating yr guts forever........... I think I can live without such nonsense.

Anyway. This week I suggest you visit Bock, Billy and Velo Gubbed Legs. Those are orders Private!!!

Youtube

Dawn Of The Dead: The Desk Jockey Years

That's it! I've hit the wall. I am no longer young and I need to sleep!

This little epiphany dawned on me today as I almost nodded out in the office. Eyes going fuzzy and feeling like lead weights, unable to move from page to screen and back again without concerted effort, they close briefly and suddenly gravity cracks me one on the back of the head and I'm heading face first for the keyboard. The shock snaps me out just in time and a little adrenalin rush perks me for another five minutes. I look around to see if anyone noticed (they hadn't) and made my way wearily back to the kitchen for more coffee.

I now realise I need to be asleep by 1amv at the latest, that I can't really drink too much on a school night and that buying pakora from the carry out at the bottom of the road at 2.15am is not really good idea. Theres nothing worse than admitting defeat, but there you are.............

Of course, in the old days I'd get leathered on cheap cider or rum miniatures, then happily do a six hour shift in a kitchen the following day. Piece of piss mate! Nowadays, it only takes a couple of shandies to make me feel a bit grubby next day. Also doesn't help that my life is that bit more sedentary now. The job occassionally calls for a bit of physical work, but more often than not I'm stuck at a PC, exercising nothing more than my right forefinger. I actually look forward to filing work. Means I'm out of the beady eyed glare of my boss and I'm able to move about and keep myself awake.

Sometimes I miss the 'pissing adrenalin' effect I got from my last job. Phone work means you're constantly on edge, as does working in a payroll office where everything has to be kept ahead of itself from week to week.

So, that's why I'm blogging now and not at 1am. I actually wanna get through tomorrow without having half a dozen narcoleptic episodes and have everyone think I'm on smack or something. Not that it matters I suppose. The new overlords look to be in Alan Sugar mode, firing people left, right and centre. Ok, technically they're 'laying people off', but that doesn't really fit in with the blatant pop culture reference, does it?

"You're Being Made Redundant!" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Am I next? Who knows. They've layed off most of the IT dept in Glasgow and got rid of the cash room. It all points one way to me and I'm not pleased. The last fucking thing I need to be doing just now, about to move into a house and trying to get something approaching savings together, is to be looking over my shoulder and having to find a new job.

Cunts!

Ok, heres what's amusing me on the internet tonight.

Mustafio, he make me smile. So does Billy, the stuff about the Heathrow Airport expansion is eye-popping. Matt at Oblong Scone ponders the nature of door holding etiquette and religious zealotry, while professional smart arse Dan Allen hi-lights sports journalism cliches and wonders why nobody's used the headline "San Diego Padres molested the Twins" . Quite frankly, the standard of sports journalism is universally bad, but considering the fucking ludicrous names the Yanks give their sports teams, I'm quite astonished that nobody has given in to the temptation...........

Dan, we salute you!

A Picture Of My Cock

To the person looking for 'Female Tortre Devices' (sic), might I suggest you seek some help?

The amount of badly spelt search engine requests for porn that are landing in my tracker has to be seen to be believed. Is it the same person? If so, what makes them think that after their first visit to my blog, there will subsequently be anything in the way of suitable wanking material? Isn't this what Pornotube was invented for..................


What is it with 'hyper' people? You know, folk that are always jolly and want to know why you aren't jumping through yr own arsehole with joy every time you see them? Picture the scene. You've just come into the office at lunchtime, when some planet sized moron you barely know stops you in yr tracks and asks why you didn't say hello to her and her cohorts in the street.

It may be that I'm incredibly rude in that I don't Merrily greet everyone that works in my office as I walk to the shops at lunch time. If I'd fucking known people were that sensitive I'd have tried harder...................Funny really, it looked like she'd latched herself onto a couple of girls sitting near her and was in the process of subjecting them to her 'vivacious personality' as they ate their lunch and checked their bebo.

If she wants the money for her sponsored waddle she's gonna have to try a lot fucking harder than that...................

Youtube.....................

Don't Fuck With Me Asshole, I'm Ten Times As Boring As You'll Ever Be!

Office bores. They bore you and bore you and then as if that wasn't enough for them, they bore you a little bit more so that come five O'Clock, you don't get yr coat and go out the door, but instead open a window, perch above the traffic below and convince yrself that pavements really are made of mattresses and marshmallow. I of course have a stronger mind than that. I counter fire with fire and deliver a few salvo's of my own. Todays topic was Scottish Cup winners and old footie teams. Office bore gives it big licks with how he once stored the OVD Junior Cup in his mothers back room to prevent it getting damaged, before telling us that he's handled every domestic football trophy in Scotland. Fact and fiction are one and the same to this clown.

Solid, who sits opposite me is partly culpable, mainly because he believes absolutely everything you tell him, so OB gets his jollies with little or no effort. Thing is, I know as much as OB does, if not more, about the arcane elements of Scottish football and he didn't like the fact that I knew St Bernards had never won the Scottish Cup*. I later informed him about things he didn't know about Stirling Albion and their previous incarnation, Kings Park. The final straw came when shortly after he claiming St Bernards were a Glasgow team, I turned round and stated that they were in fact an Edinburgh team. He didn't seem interested then........

Yes, I am a jumped up little prick, but theres nothing better than pricking the bubble of conceit and pomposity with some of your own.

Anyway, it's come to my notice that I have neglected to post on this fair blog for a full four days. Not like me really, I've always got some tedious guff to impart. So where have I been? I'd like you all to think I've been Drug Running On A Panamanian Schooner, or maybe Running Wild With The One I Love or possibly Living In A Trailer At The Edge Of Town

Alas, none of them are true. If only life conformed to carefully chosen song lyrics...................................

Adios my sweethearts.......

*Little known fact. St Bernards did actually win the Scottish Cup in 1895. So I was wrong.........

Ed Is Dead

Can't believe the poor sap who sits opposite me at work. he seems to have been sucked into being nominated as department rep, yet I've never seen someone so happy to put themselves forward for punnishment. The company I work for is in the middle of a 'merger' as it's being euphemistically referred to and his duties will consist of going to some meetings in which our new overlords go through the motions of liasing with the workforce and listening to our concerns. He reckons it'll look good on his cv, and he may be correct. Thing is, I have doubts about just how much attention companies pay to cv's when they hire people. I think theres an experiment in there......Submit a cv to various companies in which you claim in the 'personal info' section to be sixteen feet tall, possess x-ray vision, speak all known languages and possess the ability to wipe out humanity on a whim. Yes, you may be referred to the psychiatric panel by 95% of the employers you contact, but I'm also sure that there would be someone who would be more than happy to entertain you.

"Well, maybe he gives a good interview......."

On an entirely unrelated note, I was thinking the other day, "who would be my 'holy trinity' of rock'n'roll?" It's a dumb thing to think about, yet it kept me ruminating for most of the walk home yesterday. For me, Brian Wilson would be one element, Iggy Pop another........

Can anyone suggest the final element of this rather perverse 'Godhead'?

Does anyone have their own trio of pop culture genius? I'd be interested to know just how many others out there occupy their time with such useless thoughts.

Cheers!

'Hair By Maurice'

All it took was one glance in a mirror that happened to be sitting in the window of an antiques shop I was passing . I think I got an attack of self loathing, decided my hair was a disgusting mess and doubled back to the Turkish barbers I'd just passed. Ten minutes later and I'm somewhat lighter (and colder) on top and distinctly happier.

Response at work?

"Yay, iLL Man's had a Britney", followed by the inevitable question....

"So, does your head not get cold?"

Oddly enough, yes it does. What is the point of this question? What do they think I'm going to say?

"No, it's ok, I keep a three bar fire under my hat to keep it warm......."

That said, I know someone at work who's balding from the back and spends thirty quid getting his hair 'done'. Why? If anyone were ever in need of a No1 cut, it's him.......



Anyway, I was moved to a new seat the other day and I'm frankly unimpressed. I reckon I'm 'under surveillance' by the supervisor because he thinks I'm not doing enough work. Fair enough, I'm not........God it's the most awful shitey work and now I can't even send sneaky emails and look at the net on the sly. The guy across from me loves it of course. He wants to be a para-legal or something, the poor fucker, can't get enough of the old title deeds and whatnot. As if being an obsessive Celtic fan wasn't enough.....Anyway, I was on the verge of getting out a few weeks ago, but you know how these things go, you need a few runs at it before you take off.......